Solar energy solutions provider Solar Frontier announced that it has sold its 2MW Kunitomi Megasolar power plant in Miyazaki, Japan to a trust account operated by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUTB).

OPV thin-film firm Heliatek is supplying its ‘HeliaFilm’ substrate to a building integrated organic photovoltaic (BIOPV) project in Singapore that will evaluate its performance and durability in hot and humid climates.

Updated: Hanergy Thin Film Power Group’s thin-film equipment manufacturing subsidiary, Fujian Apollo, has won an order valued at US$660 million to supply 600MW of tools and plant operations to Shangdong Macrolink New Resources Technology Ltd.

DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions and module manufacturer TSEC will feature the latter’s new “V-Series” high-efficiency solar panels for the first time during PV EXPO 2015 in Tokyo, Japan from later this week.

An agreement between the Government of Nepal (GoN) and the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group to generate 25MW of solar photovoltaic generated electricity was signed today.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), one of Japan’s major electric utility and transmission providers, will conduct a microgrid demonstration project on a remote Japanese island, incorporating solar, storage, wind and diesel.

A new review from energy watch dog International Energy Agency (IEA) has listed high grades for Indonesia’s operation of energy groups and state-owned institutions, but also noted that the country still has much to do in order to ensure a sustainable future.

The market for decentralised renewable energy in India could grow 70% annually to be worth more than US$150 million by 2018, while around five million residential solar systems are predicted to be sold in the country between last year and 2018, according to a new report.

Total shipments of PV modules in Japan for the third quarter of the 2014 Japanese financial year stood at 2.46GW, representing a 4% fall from the previous quarter, according to new figures from the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA).

An inauguration ceremony has been held in Tokushima, Japan, to mark the start of operation of a 21MW solar farm constructed by Mitsubishi Corporation and its joint venture (JV) partner Nippon Paper Industries.

The hype surrounding India’s plans to install 100GW of solar by 2022 went to a new level at the weekend as India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Piyush Goyal, Minister of State for power attended the first government backed event to kick-start investment in Modi’s plans.

Recent challenges to large-scale solar in Japan, including disputes over grid connection, appear to be having a tangible effect, with negative impacts reported this week by two major PV companies in their latest financial results.

Waaree Energies, one of India’s largest PV module manufacturers, is significantly adding capacity to meet demand. Having already expanded capacity to 500MW it now plans to double that to 1GW over the next four months.

Taiwan-based PV manufacturer Motech Industries has reported a 13.4% jump in sales for the month of January, continuing a recovery in sales which slumped in July and August last year due to the US anti-dumping case.

Looking back, 2014 was a year of convalescence for a PV industry still battered and bruised from a period of ferocious competition. End-market demand continued apace, with analysts towards the end of 2014 predicting the year would see between around 45 and 50GW of deployment. That has begun to feed through to the supplier end of the market, with all the main manufacturers announcing capacity expansions in 2015 and further ahead.

Although the past few years have proved extremely testing for PV equipment manufacturers, falling module prices have driven solar end-market demand to previously unseen levels. That demand is now starting to be felt by manufacturers, to the extent that leading companies are starting to talk about serious capacity expansions later this year and into 2015. This means that the next 12 months will be a critical period if companies throughout the supply chain are to take full advantage of the PV industry’s next growth phase.